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Here's the scoop: The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium's summer TV commercials are all about poop.

Shovel-wielding zookeepers -- plus a few professional actors -- sing and dance their way through
the zoo grounds in the ad titled "No more number 2."

"Lots of scoopin', no more poopin'," they croon in the 60-second spot, taped on the grounds in
May and then released last week as a commercial on TV and YouTube.

Zoo director emeritus Jack Hanna is there, of course, holding a pile of muck in his shovel. And
a blonde ballerina twirls through, stopping to gesture at an elephant's rear end. The finale
features a zookeeper kick line as a banner unrolls proclaiming "Columbus Zoo #1."

Ron Foth Jr., who dreamed up the commercial, got the idea from Hanna, said Heather Hotaling, who
works for Ron Foth Advertising in Columbus.

"Jack was telling a story about the elephant workers picking up poop and said, 'That's what my
life has been about -- cleaning up poop.' "

Foth rolled that idea into the USA Travel Guide's designation of Columbus as the No. 1 zoo in
the country and the childish expression for pooping -- going No. 2 -- to point out "No. 2 is gone.
Now we're No. 1."

Foth and others at his agency wrote lyrics, found a composer and hired
High School Musical choreographer Bonnie Story to create the dance and whip the
Columbus keepers into shape. Filming took a day and a half.

"I know I hit the peak of my career when I get to have the word
excrement in a commercial," Foth joked.

The commercial cost about $100,000 and is part of the zoo's $1 million yearly advertising
budget, said Pete Fingerhut, a zoo associate director.

There was one unexpected expense. The zoo planned to return the 65 shovels, purchased for
$3,000, after the commercial shoot. Hanna wasn't aware of the arrangement and, when asked by a
participant to sign one, signed all of them and gave them to the performers.